I'm a US Citizen housewife living in Hong Kong. My husband is a local, not a US Citizen, with no connections to the US. We got married in Hong Kong, and we live in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is home and we haven't been back to the US for many years.

I used to work, and was filing income tax during those years, also deducting Foreign Earned Income Exclusion. Since I never exceeded the Exclusion, I've never had to pay tax. 8 years ago, we had a child, and I stopped working, and did not have any income from that time forward. Since I didn't have any income at all, I stopped filing US taxes.

In 2012, my husband decided to arrange for his company to deposit some of his salary directly into my bank account for household expenses, school fees, etc.. This was part of my husband's salary, and was declared by my husband to the local tax authority, and local tax paid on it. The monthly amount is about US$5000 per month (Yes, Hong Kong is very expensive). I assumed that since this wasn't salary, I haven't filed this with the IRS as income.

Recently, my bank sent me documents to fill in for FATCA (https://www.treasury.gov/resource-ce...ges/FATCA.aspx) so they could report my bank account to the IRS. This bank account is already declared in my previous tax filings, and is not a new account.

Due to having to sign the FATCA forms, I've been looking at the IRS website, and from what I can gather, the amount that is banked into my account can be considered income?

I have a few questions.

1. Is this considered income by the IRS?

2. If this is considered income, how do I declare the amount since I don't pay local tax on it and there are no "employer" documents, and this isn't salary?

3. Since I started receiving this amount since 2012, I assume I'll have to file for 2012 onwards, but since the amount is still less than the Foreign Earned Income Exemption (https://www.irs.gov/individuals/inte...n-requirements), I'd assume that I can still take the Exclusion and not pay tax on it?

Any information would be greatly appreciated..